


The Warm Scarf

by thoroughlysherlocked



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Post-Reichenbach, Sherlock's Scarf - Freeform, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-07-04
Packaged: 2017-11-03 17:44:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoroughlysherlocked/pseuds/thoroughlysherlocked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written from the prompt:<br/>"Can you write a fic where Sherlock isn't dead and comes back to John in a strange way. Like really strange. Like disguised as a therapist. And have John be all angsty cause he loves Sherlock and didn't get to tell him and he gets a new therapist who is Sherlock and yeah..."<br/>from ronweasleysmfah.tumblr.com</p>
<p>(That summary seems spoilery but I took it with a lot of poetic license...)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Closed Room

“Ok John,” says Ella, “You’re clearly having trouble vocalising these feelings, but I believe it really is an important step towards you dealing with your grief. There’s a method I’d like to try if you’re willing. I think it might help.”

John has no desire to vocalise his feelings. He didn’t do it when he should have done it so there is really no point doing it now, but Mycroft is paying for the therapy, and John wants to wring every last penny out of that traitorous Judas, so he agrees to Ella’s suggestion.

Closed room therapy. 

John hasn’t been able to say the things he needed to have said - should have said - kicks himself daily that he hadn’t said - to Sherlock while he was still alive to Ella. This space is safe, in theory (nothing is safe NOTHING John, never forget that), a closed room, empty but for him, a mirror on the wall (“some patients find it therapeutic to face themselves, John”) and a chair. He chooses to stand and damn his leg. The idea is that he say the things now, alone, yes, but out loud rather than in his head. The words need to be released, let go. John needs to let go,

(butIdon’twanttoletgodon’tleavemeSherlock)

needs to move on.

He sighs, he clenches his jaw, clenches and unclenches his fist. Why not? No one will hear him. No one will see him. He won’t be letting anyone down or giving anything away. He is in a safe space. A closed room.

“Sh…”

“…”

“Sherlock”

…

“I’m sorry. You weren’t a machine. Machines are made by someone and you… you were too extraordinary to be imagined in some computer lab. You were human. So human. Flesh and bl..blood. You had a brain and lungs and a heart… and… even if yours didn’t always work like… like boring people’s did… you had mine to do that for you. You had…have…my heart Sherlock.”

“and…and I just needed to tell you that. And that..I miss you. So much Sherlock. Everyday. You once said …danger… to me. And I came to you.Nothing is.. dangerous anymore. Because it doesn’t matter what happens to me now, so how could anything be a risk when I’ve already lost everything that mattered to me? I don;t know how to do this without you. I need you Sherlock. I need you. and I miss you.

and I love you.”

By this point he was trembling and his bad leg threatened to give way. That’s what the chair was for…

He sat down, head in his hands, just feeling the blood pulsing in his ears.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

On the other side of the mirror sat a man. And this man had steely blue eyes out of which hot tears were beading and falling over those sharp (rather too sharp nowadays with no one to make him toast in the mornings and remind him how many days it’s been since he last ate dinner) cheekbones. This was more than he’d ever expected to hear from the stiff upper lip of a certain army doctor. This was too much and he shouldn’t be feeling like this and he shouldn’t have come here and CARING IS NOT AN ADVANTAGE SHERLOCK and he needed to leave before he did something stupid. Something that might put everyone in danger. Again.

He left hurriedly, so hurriedly in fact that he didn’t stop to battle against the somewhat overgrown rosebushes outside the front door, whose thorns snagged on his clothing.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

When John was feeling suitably composed he stood up and exited the closed room. 

Ella would want to talk about this next week he was sure but for now he just needed to get home and have a cup of tea.

As he left the house something caught his eye.

Snagged on the thorns of one of Ella’s rosebushes was a blue cashmere scarf.

Still warm.


	2. White Noise

John grabbed the scarf, snagging the fibres on the rose thorns in his haste.

(Sherlockwouldkillhimhelovedthatscarf)

It was warm to the touch.

(ColdhandswarmheartIhavebeenreliablyinformedthatIdon’thaveonebutwebothknowthat’snottrue)

It smelled like cigarettes and sweat and iodine and 

(sherlock)

He ran. He clutched the scarf in his hand, heart pounding, white noise blasting in his head because he couldn’t let himself think

(SHERLOCK)

and he ran. He ran down Ella’s driveway out onto the street and, hearing a car driving off, turned left.

(SHERLOCK)

He ran.

He saw a black car turning a corner but he lost it. 

(DAMN his leg).

He slumped down by the edge of the road, blood pumping loudly in his ears. That white noise grew louder. 

(Don’t be an idiot John people don’t just come back from the SHERLOCKNOBLOODONTHEGROUNDNO dea-WHITENOISEWHITENOISEWHITENOISE)

He looped the scarf around his neck and set off home.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

He wouldn’t let himself think about where the scarf had come from. Some nasty trick played on him by Anderson or one of Moriarty’s scum no doubt. Because there was no way it could be

(SHERLOCKNO)

Despite all logic he just couldn’t stop wearing it

(smellingit)

Day in, day out, he could be seen wearing that soft blue scarf. Women he met told him that it brought out the colour of his eyes. He always smiled. He never called them anymore, not since that day in the closed room when he had told no-one

(themanbehindthemirrorSHERLOCKNO)

that he loved them.

That scarf kept him warm through the winter. Rolled up it served as a pillow when he slept on Harry’s floor, yet again, because she couldn’t be trusted to be left alone. gradually the scarf just became part of the fabric of John’s life. Over time that smell he loved faded. The cigarette smoke replaced by the smell of the hospital waiting room. The sweat from frantic chases replaced by forever-denied late night tears (those nightmares of his had… changed. Sand dunes replaced with endless concrete pavements). Iodine was replaced by too many spilled cups of tea (that intermittent tremor in his hand wasn’t getting any better).

Occasionally, he’ll buy a pack of 

(sherlock’s)

cigarettes and sit in the wrong armchair, smoking them until he feels sick and dizzy.

He drags out the boxes of scientific equipment and mixes strange liquids (and nearly burning the flat down in the process). 

Sometimes he just runs through the streets of London.

He runs.

But that smell

(SHERLOCK)

wont come back.

…………………………………………………………………………………….

In between helping that woman get the pushchair off the bus (She smiled at him. he wont call her) and wrestling his shopping bags past the zimmer frame crowd he didn’t notice that he hadn’t tied his scarf tight enough and it had slipped off.

He didn’t notice until he got home.

He dropped the shopping bags in the hallway.

He ran.

……………………………………………………………………………………..

The tall man didn’t apologise to the woman with the pushchair blocking the pavement as he jumped onto the bus, just in time.

He was calculating the group life expectancy of the O.A.Ps on their way to the bingo hall when something caught his eye.

A tatty, frayed, just-about-blue scarf.

Still warm.

It smelled of tea and old magazines, strawberry jam and penicillin, tears and John and John and John.

He looped the scarf around his neck and got off the bus.

He was home.


	3. Safe Enough.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reunion.

Sherlock was drifting. The main links had been easy enough to take care of. Every last spider trapped under a glass or crushed under foot. But you could rip the centre out of a web and still leave threads attached to the wall, so how could he know how safe was safe enough?

Safe enough would be (teaandoldmagazinesstrawberryjampenicillintearsandJohnandJohnandJohn)  
Safe enough would be not running anymore (runRUNFORYOURLIFE)  
Safe enough would be familiar voices (nomorewhiteNOISEWHITEnoisewhiteNOISE)

Safe enough was blood on his hands.  
Blood on his hands was good enough.

 

John ran.  
Sherlock got off the bus.  
John ran.  
Sherlock tightened the scarf around his neck.  
John ran.  
Sherlock looked up to see five foot seven inches of ex-army doctor barreling down the street towards him.

'John?'

The doctor stopped just short of him.  
(seveninchesawayjustcloseenoughtosmellthelanolinofhisjumperandthedaysworknotyetshoweredaway)

'Sherlock?'

'Yes.'

'You coming home?'

 

'Yes.'

 

'You staying?'

'Yes.'

 

'I'll stick the kettle on.'

They climbed the seventeen stairs to 221B.  
Sherlock exchanged his coat for a dusty dressing gown from the back of the cupboard and settled down on the sofa.  
John did the thing with the tea bags and the milk.

The tattered old rag of a scarf slipped off the coathook and fell unnoticed to the bottom of the cupboard, where it would lie gathering dust for a long time. A very long time indeed. Neither John nor Sherlock had any need for it anymore. 

They were home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was a disgustingly long time to wait for such a short chapter.   
> I'm sorry. I hope you like it....


End file.
